US$35 million Zhovhe project on course
GOVERNMENT is finalising preliminary works towards full-scale implementation of the US$35 million Zhovhe irrigation project that is set to turn Beitbridge into a greenbelt while addressing the border town’s perennial water woes.
Matabeleland South provincial irrigation development officer, Engineer Shepherd Mupotegwa, said yesterday that their consultant was seized with infield designs for the project, which will have 2 500 hectares under irrigation with a 63km water canal to supply Beitbridge Town.
On its course to Beitbridge, the water canal will supply commercial and small-holder farmers in Wards 14 and 6 with irrigation water and adjacent villages.
The Zhovhe initiative has been on the cards for the past 25 years and things started moving in 2018 when the New Dispensation led by President Mnangagwa secured a US$20 million loan from Kuwait and contributed US$15 million from Treasury to finance the project.
“An Environmental Impact Assessment has been done and our consultant is now busy finalising the infield designs,” said Eng Mupotegwa.
“We are confident this will be completed in due course and we have also put together the preliminary works and sent the expression of interest document to the funders in Kuwait. “Once this initial process is completed, we can start with the tendering processes for the contractor(s) to carry out full-scale civil works.”
Eng Mupotegwa said they were also working on having stakeholders meeting this month in Beitbridge, where they will apprise everyone concerned on the project’s progress. He said they had identified alternative state land to house the irrigation project to minimise the costs of having to relocate people from the previously proposed site.
So far, the water is being directed from the dam to Beitbridge Town through the wasteful sand abstraction method.
The Zhovhe project is being carried out as part of the Government’s efforts to accelerate the development of irrigation and water infrastructure to cover a total of 350 000 hectares of farming land in the next three seasons to boost agriculture production.
Constructed in 1995, the Zhovhe Dam is one of the 10 biggest water bodies in the country with a carrying capacity of 133 million cubic metres.
The irrigation and water canal project was muted in 1998, but nothing much has been done on the ground until the New Dispensation intervened in the last two years.
At the moment the dam is being used by fish cooperatives, the Toppick high integrated farm, and a few villagers from wards 14, 7, and 11.-The Chronicle
